The Magic of NLP

Written by Suzana Panasian

The Magic of NLP

I have always believed in magic. We all do when we are little, but many of us lose it gradually as we grow up and face life’s challenges. However, there are always some people that succeed at keeping the magic going and maybe just like you, I am becoming one of them.

I actually remember clearly a very important moment in my past, a few good years ago. It was during a challenging period of my life when I would have given anything to meet somebody, a therapist of some sort, who could simply erase the heaviness of my past and cut off the ‘BS’ of my negative mind.

I
met several teachers/therapists, but none was able to give me THAT magic that I
was looking for. I wanted to find THAT person who could see right through me,
who could really hear and feel what I said and felt, who could literally change
my mind. Somebody aware, alive and passionate and true, somebody who is not
teaching lessons, or feels “compassion” for you, but simply is totally there
for you in your world, in your universe, dancing your dance with you. Somebody
spontaneous, alert, with sense of humor. I found little pieces and bits here
and there in various teachers and therapists but none of them had it all.

It is not long ago that realised that the reason for which I never found that person was because I was supposed to become her. My journey has been quite long, as my passion for the ways of the mind has been there since I was young. I studied and practiced various disciplines among which Yoga, Ayurveda, Gurdjieff, read and enlightened myself with the Jungian knowledge and insights, but all came together when I took the NLP classes.

Getting into NLP was an adventure in itself
as life had its ways to push me in the right direction even though I didn’t
even know what NLP was about. I was looking for a training in coaching and I
asked 3 of my friends who were doing coaching at that time, what type of
training they followed. They all mentioned NLP, so there I was, searching for
NLP classes in UK, the closest English speaking location for me.

Browsing and exploring the various options, listening to some NLP videos and writing to some NLP trainers, I eventually chose Terry Elston of NLP World, simply because I liked his style and his online class that gave me the chance to have a taste of what it’s all about.

I was pulled like a by magnet. My whole
nervous system was excited about learning more and applying more of this
fabulous method. I even had a dream of swimming in a pool of champagne a few
days before I started my Practitioner class in January 2017. Useless to say
that the first level only enhanced and pushed even further my curiosity and my
excitement about learning more. Terry’s anchors and metaphors definitely worked
miracles on me.

Three months later, I was joining the Master class which was as enchanting, if not even more revealing than the first level. Much more has been unblocked with myself through the various exercises that we did on ourselves and a whole new universe opened for me. As I had started to offer my NLP services through my website right after the practitioner class, I was having my first online (Skype) coaching client from US while taking the master class. I was using with her at night the tools that I was learning about and practicing during the day.

It’s been one year and half and the magic
started to unfold for me in unbelievable ways. Of course I have applied and
used the NLP tools in all of my sessions ever since and the impact of my
treatments (I use several other therapies) increased dramatically. The Milton
model, reframing, chunking up and down, the time scramble, the now state became
my regular allies in every conversation.

However, in my own personal experience, as
I was still facing resistance at expanding my activity and my possibilities of expression,
what helped me the most was establishing report and anchoring powerful states.

I was not long ago invited to a company to offer my services (therapy) and the financial outcome was depending greatly on my own efforts. I was expected to sell myself. I never liked sales and I used to feel discomfort in persuading people “buying” from me. After a conversation that I had with the manager in which he gave me tips and tricks on how to do it, I went to my room and I reflected on it. What he had suggested me was not to my liking, was not in alignment with my values and I was not feeling at ease with his ways of doing. In consequence, I decided to use the NLP tools such as creating report with all the people in the team, including the manager and the guests of the hotel. Moreover I felt appropriate to use a powerful state and so I anchored three of them: 1 playfulness and curiosity, 2 charisma and 3 keeping an open heart.

As time passed by I was having great rapport with all the company’s employees. My colleagues would sell my services to the clients, the clients were happy and were returning for more treatments and I realized soon enough that people like people that are like them, that people like to help people that they like and that being playful was really the best way to be.

Since the employees of the spa started
opening to me I soon learned more about their daily struggles and helped them, whenever I had the chance, to find new ways of
being and dealing with their day to day reality. It is during this visit that
the idea of offering coaching sessions and workshops for companies came to mind
and I felt a strong interest in this direction.

And the most magical part of it all is that only one month later, as I was visiting another location to offer my treatments to another company the opportunity presented itself. As I was having a conversation with the manager of the company, again through establishing report, I simply heard myself asking him “If you were to have somebody give a workshop for your employees to help improve relationships skills, why would you do it”. Without realizing it, I simply talked him into organizing a seminar for me with his employees. As unbelievable as it seemed to me, it was done. Held in a beautiful presentation room, in one of the most expensive 5 star hotels.

It was the morning of the presentation, a beautiful sunny day and I was walking slowly, totally aware, like carried by a cloud, one step after another, through this beautiful corridors of a luxurious hotel towards the presentation room, when I had the impression of living a dream. I had the sense and the feeling of magic as it felt like the Universe was bending to my request. Or better said, to my deepest desire. Or even better said, to whom I chose to be.

And there I was, in this perfect setting, where everything was organized to the detail: Pens and papers, water bottles, coffee and croissants, a projector and huge screen just for me to perform. The performance itself was brilliant. I gave presentations before and I enjoy public speaking, but there was always a little bit of nervousness at least during the first moments. This time it was just playfulness. Words were coming out by themselves. The anchors worked miracles. The power poses I chose to use, worked miracles. I felt, for the first time, being exactly where I was supposed to be, in the flow, in the game, feeling wonderfully powerful in a playful way.

After the contract finished and was in the lineup to board the plane to come back home after this fantastic trip, I was playing with the anchors and with the state I wanted to have, the word “Master” came to mind. It was not a simple word anymore, it had an energy and an experience attached to it. And I got for the first time a taste of what mastering is. Mastering NLP, mastering your mind, mastering your nervous system: the ability to use all the resources that you have to play the game in the most rewarding way.

“Magic is real” – this was my motto all these years even during times when I largely doubted it. I used to say it to encourage myself when things were not going well. But now, as we say in NLP, I really saw it, felt it, smelled it and sensed it all over the body and I said to myself “it feels good to have it all”